


Better as a robot

by Phrenotobe_Archive



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dysphoria, Gen, Trans Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 19:09:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrenotobe_Archive/pseuds/Phrenotobe_Archive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He installs a chin-up bar in his doorway, and fails absolutely to lift his own weight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better as a robot

Dirk Strider does not have a birth certificate, but knows his name is Dirk. Not precisely like Dave, but an improvement on it, a sharp click at the end that all his caretakers snap off when their vocal modules full stop at the tail end of a sentence. He likes to read, and he likes to think; he views his body like a machine, adhering to the diet plan chart to stay healthy and not fall into scurvy or malnourishment, ticking the box at the end of the week and breaking down the cardboard package with his heel.  
He doesn’t even think much of it, since his mind is always six or so steps ahead, looking down at his body in foreshortened perspective in the shower and planning his next project. He feels ok, not strange or unusual until puberty hits him in a late bloom, a flare of his hips and the slimness of his fingers all at odds. He angles himself away in the mirror, flexing a noodle bicep with a frown. 

Dirk prods at usenet groups that petered out before he was born, a bit of this and a little more of that, rifling through muscle builders and strengtheners, trying out conflicting advice and leaning on his robots to look for protein powder. At the very least, It makes him quit checking off his nutrition passively. He installs a chin-up bar in his doorway, and fails absolutely to lift his own weight. Dirk resorts to crunches and pressups to build core, clothes himself in fingerless gloves and baggy pants and does angry katas on the roof against invisible assailants until one robot or another spars with him and leads him back in to eat. Suits look wrong, feel wrong, ape Dave’s style too closely, even with his home-made binder, too many stitches unpicked and re-sewn according to a tutorial that was created before biomesh extruder fabric was even a thing. 

He knows there’s a real solution somewhere, picking vaguely at archived tumblr groups, questions and answers and the dreck of yahoo. He falls asleep by computer screen radiance, jumbled and confused and wishing for the past to rush forward to him, drop him center flow into humanity’s golden era before the fall. There was a way to change for good, his screen tells him, but it ceased production in 2086. 

He sits very still for a moment, before reaching for a robotic cast-off, smoothing over the corrugated outer layer, and laying his hand over the slack metal fingers, measuring the size against his own. He has enough technology to improve himself, copy himself, remove self-doubt and draw his ideal figure into metallic excellence. He will have what he wants, eventually. An upgrade, designed for everything life can throw at him.  
He just feels so much like weird flesh right now.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my brother.


End file.
